My Music Memoir: May 31, 1990

By time I filed into my seat at the Miami Arena on May 31, 1990 I was already hooked. I was already a lifelong fan. I had watched the tour film Depeche Mode 101 perhaps 25 times, I had every album (okay cassette but you know), and I skipped first period at Homestead Senior High School on March 19th to be the first to buy the Violator album and listen to it in my car. Depeche Mode was already my favorite band. But there was one more ritual I needed to experience to make my undying loyalty complete – a live concert.

Once I heard tickets were going on sale I remember waking up at 4 or 5AM on a random Saturday and heading down to a waterbed store on US 1 in Cutler Ridge to stand in line to get tickets to the DM show that May. See, back in the day there was a method to getting the best tickets, you waited in line. Pretty much all tickets were the same price and if you were first in line you could get a floor ticket for the same price you would get level three tickets. I got six or eight tickets (I really cannot remember) on the floor and used money I had saved from my job at McDonald’s. I could not wait and marked the date on my calendar.

The weekend before the show I got this stupid hat I had purchased at Structure. I wore it everywhere because I thought I looked like Martin Gore. It was a wide brim black hat and it was just awful. I loved paring it with my Erasure Wild tour shirt and some sweet acid washed shorts from The Gap. To say I felt I was cool is not even the point. I was not, but I felt like I was.

So we got to the show and it felt like every kid I knew from Homestead Senior High was there. It was such a great night. We scream sang every song. Dave Gahan had on these white jeans and a leather jacket that made him the coolest dude EVER! Martin Gore sang a song or two form his solo album Counterfeit. The show was a visual treat for the eyes and I had never seen anything like it. Nitzer Ebb opened for them and that was also just an unreal experience.

I actually screamed until I had no voice, danced to exhaustion, and knew at that point nothing is greater than live music. I had been to many concerts before this show but Depeche Mode was without question the best. I posted a photo of what the tour shirt looked like. I wore mine until it fell apart. But more so, as I type this I am listening to a YouTube of the actual concert and it still sounds just as amazing and brings back so many memories.

So this is the series. I am going to write a couple of times a week a memory based on my love of music. Sometimes loosely, sometimes directly. But always related to my love of music. I hope you enjoy.